Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

If you have overdrive, a wire from the overdrive relay to the low tension terminal on the distributor can kill ignition completely if the overdrive contacts are stuck together. This happened to me. If you don’t have overdrive, never mind.

Another thing to check, is the condensor body grounded? I once had one work its way loose and it would lose its ground at random intervals. Took me a while to find it.

Well, all the parts I needed were finally tracked down and arrived. In short, we're back up and running again with the main culprit being a failed coil which I believe is original to the car so no real complaints after 84 years of faithful service.

Here's the good, the bad and the ugly:

The good:
A NAPA replacement coil (IC7) did the trick. I couldn't bring myself to spring for an original 1940 version at 10 times the price from Merritt when I have such a mix of components all over the car making it far from original. I also replaced the distributor cap, rotor and condenser. Had to leave the original points in (covered under the bad) but cleaned the contacts as well as all electrical contacts for the coil and distributor. Took the car for a 20 mile test drive and it ran beautifully. Much more power and quieter than before and a disturbing ping noted just before the coil failed was gone (in retrospect I guess a weak spark from the failing coil probably contributed to the ping).

The bad:
The 20 mile test drive had a mid point stop for about 30 minutes and I had a hard/no restart problem again. Spark was there but it would not ignite for about 10 minutes and several attempts. Luckily it finally started and the return trip was uneventful. I began to suspect the charging system might not be working properly and the drive just dropped the battery voltage low enough to make a restart hard.

After an night on trickle charge the car started on first attempt the next morning. Cleaned all the contact points for the voltage regulator (inside and out) and all generator connections then ran the car on idle for about 15 minutes in the garage. Battery voltage was 6.5v prior to start up and 6.2v throughout idle time. If throttled up to very high speed the charge rate at battery reaches 7.1v. So it looks like the charging system works but can any one tell me if I should be seeing a higher recharge rate to the battery? I did 2 more cold starts today without any additional trickle charge and both were fine on the first attempt. I'll take another longer road test tomorrow to see if the hard restart persists and, if so, what might be the next culprit.

The replacement points I sourced from Brillman did not fit the Autolite IGT distributor even though their website said they would fit that model and 1940-1948 Packards. The base plate does not match what is needed. I told them and they will refund upon return.




The ugly:
The NAPA coil has 2 top terminals where the original had 1 top and 1 bottom terminal with the bottom connected to the ignition switch via armored cable. There is enough slack in the cable/wire to make the 2 terminal top work but the bottom cap from the original coil cannot be removed from the cable so it becomes a leftover vestige of the 1940 coil. Not what you want if you are looking for originality but it is functional. Since the original coil had a mounting bracket attached, but the new one does not, I needed to find a bracket to hold the new NAPA coil. A standard coil bracket for a Ford F150 and Mustang worked just fine.







Any thoughts and inputs on the charging system ranges would be appreciated.

I seem to recall that at one point someone was making a coil adapter that allowed the shielded cable to connect to it. The coil mounted and attached as usual with the exception that there was a longer wire that attached to the other end's terminal of the new coil but I am not sure who was making those and whether they are still available.

Quote:
I made my own holder which uses the Napa IC7 to replace the Clipper thru the firewall style coil but it might be KM Lifestyle that has something to offer for the conventional bodies. A notice on their homepage says the website is undergoing reconstruction so it will take a phone call to find out for sure but they do have a small snapshot photo showing what looks like a coil that would mount on the engine.




You might also be able to fabricate something out of exhaust tubing to mimic what they did for their 47 coil. You would need to provide some kind of termination inside the cup and tubing to add the length of wire needed to reach the top coil terminal. The added wire exit would need to be protected and wire would be visible but maybe it could be positioned where it is mostly hidden and at least the armored cable cup would have a secure mount.




You could also go a little more elaborate with aluminum tubing and pieces to make an armored cable cup mount assy such as I did for the Clipper. Perhaps a block mount could be made or attached or the holder you found would work instead of the triangular firewall mount.